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Fenwick, John

(Encyclopedia)Fenwick, John, 1618–83, Quaker colonist in America, b. England. Planning to found a Quaker refuge in America, Fenwick obtained (1674) Lord Berkeley's share of New Jersey in trust for the Quaker merc...

Parsons, Theophilus

(Encyclopedia)Parsons, Theophilus, 1750–1813, American jurist, b. Byfield, Mass. One of the leading lawyers in New England, he was an outstanding member of the Essex Junto, which opposed (1778) the state constitu...

Charter Oak

(Encyclopedia)Charter Oak, white oak tree that until 1856 stood in Hartford, Conn., and was thought to be 1,000 years old. There is a tradition that when Sir Edmund Andros, as governor-general of New England, deman...

Harvard, John

(Encyclopedia)Harvard, John, 1607–38, English minister in America and first major benefactor of Harvard College, b. Southwark, England, M.A. Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 1635. He immigrated in 1637 to Charlestown...

Knowles, John

(Encyclopedia)Knowles, John, 1926–2001, American writer, b. Fairmont, W. Va., grad. Yale, 1949. He is best known for his semiautobiographical first novel, A Separate Peace (1960), a coming-of-age story about a bo...

birling

(Encyclopedia)birling bûrˈlĭng [key], sport in which two competitors try to maintain balance on a floating log, each seeking to rotate the log and spill the other into the water. With origins in the spring log d...

Still, William Grant

(Encyclopedia)Still, William Grant, 1895–1978, American composer, b. Woodville, Miss. Still was of Native American, African-American, and European ancestry. He studied music at Oberlin, with Chadwick at the New E...

Calvinistic Methodist Church

(Encyclopedia)Calvinistic Methodist Church, Protestant Christian denomination, closely allied to Presbyterianism. It originated in Wales (1735–36) with the evangelistic preaching of Howell Harris, Daniel Rowlands...

Winthrop, John, 1588–1649, governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony

(Encyclopedia)Winthrop, John, 1588–1649, governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony, b. Edwardstone, near Groton, Suffolk, England. Of a landowning family, he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, came into a fami...

Mayflower, ship

(Encyclopedia)Mayflower, ship that in 1620 brought the Pilgrims from England to New England. She set out from Southampton in company with the Speedwell, the vessel that had borne some of the English separatists fro...